


The keys to open Paradise

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She told him to call her Dara, shy Eddara, and she danced with the reluctance of a girl with a prettier sister and a betrothed who seemed more interested in other women, and then she refused to kiss him.</p>
<p>Asric thought he might be in love just for that, because he could not remember the last time a woman said no to him after he actively set out to charm her, betrothed or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The men under summer skies

Dara ignored Elbert just as much as he ignored her - it was an easy thing to do, truly, because he had never been interested in her at all and resented that Lord Arryn had set their betrothal before either of them were old enough to voice an opinion on the matter, even though such was the way of things - and kept her arm linked with Brandon's, laughing aloud at his salacious comments and making certain to keep her free hand tight with Lya's, who had her hand tucked firmly into Ben's elbow. Dara had so little opportunity to spend time with her brothers and sister, and she intended on making the most of it, which meant keeping Brandon away from the various great beauties who had converged on Harrenhall with all the finest knights of the realm and making sure that Lya did not do anything rash.

Elbert and Robert were roaring laughter at something or other nearby - while Dara did not think much of her husband-to-be, she  _was_ very fond of her fool foster brother, and only wished that he might behave better so Lya might get a better impression of him - and so Dara did not worry about them even a jot, relieved instead to have a day to spend entirely in her siblings' company without any greater cares than ensuring Brandon did not take it into his head to seduce to Crown Prince's wife just to see if he could.

And then she saw him.

She did not know his name, but he was  _beautiful_ \- smiling and bright-eyed and tall and broad but elegant with it. His hair was much darker than her own, his eyes a wonderful indigo-blue, and the man in white at his side might have been his twin but for his starlight-fair hair.

"Who are they?" she whispered to Brandon, who seemed to know who everyone was, gesturing as subtly as she could towards the two men - they had to be at least brothers, surely, none but brothers could be so uncannily alike, as alike as herself and Lya - and blushing when Brandon started to grin.

"They, sweet sister," Brandon said, uncharacteristically quiet (mayhaps to spare her further blushes, he could be oddly considerate of her shy nature when he put his mind to it), "are the brothers Dayne - Ser Arthur and Ser Asric. Ser Arthur, in the white, is a sworn brother of the Kingsguard, and that leaves Ser Asric, though the younger, as heir to their eldest brother, Lord Allem Dayne of Starfall, in Dorne." His grin widened. "Ser Arthur supposedly keeps to his vows, but Ser Asric has a reputation as a cad. I'm sure he'd bed you if you were interested, Dara."

She didn't dare let go of Lya's hand, so she could only scowl up at Brandon and hope her cheeks didn't look as red as they felt.

"You are a terrible brother," she announced, but she couldn't help but laugh along with him.

 

* * *

 

Asric Dayne had always enjoyed court, and coming to Harrenhall for this tourney was just one more opportunity for fun before Allem called him back to Starfall  _again_ _._

"Do stop fussing, Arthur," he said, wrapping an arm around Arthur's shoulders and tugging him closer. "I solemly swear to at least try to behave myself while we are here. I promise I shan't shame the family name, brother dear,  _honest_ I do."

"You are a spoiled brat," Arthur said firmly, "who is far too used to having his own way. Mother ought never have indulged you so."

"She indulged you quite as much!"

Arthur grinned.

"Never," he denied, shoving Asric away and darting towards the keep. "You were always her special pet, little brother, and you always played on that to get your way!"

Asric was used to getting his way, he admitted to himself as he chased Arthur through the castle, but not only because he had always been their mother's special favourite - Asric was quite aware of how handsome and charming he was, and he made use of his abundant natural gifts to have more fun than  _Arthur_ had ever had, that much was a certainty.

He didn't even see the long-faced lot - brothers and sisters, they had to be, for they were near as alike as Arthur and himself - until he was tumbling over the taller of the girls (women, gods above but she was  _certainly_ a woman) and hurridly rolling off her.

"My most sincere apologies, my lady!" he gasped, springing to his feet and holding out his hands. "I was preoccupied with my brother and did not notice you, forgive me!"

"You are forgiven, ser," the man - the other was a boy, barely two-and-ten by Asric's estimate - said, steadying his sister and smiling. "My sister is tougher than she looks, she will be quite fine, I assure you - risk hurting her again, though, and I will not be so readily forgiving."

He rushed away then, mortified, and it took him all the rest of the afternoon to discover just who it was he'd knocked over - Lady Eddara Stark, eldest daughter of the Lord of Winterfell, foster-daughter of the Lord of the Eyrie, and betrothed of Ser Elbert Arryn, Lord Arryn's heir, as well as foster-sister to the Lord of Storm's End.

Asric was determined to see her again, to ask at least why she had allowed her brother to speak for her when he ran into her, and so determined to dance with her at least once.

 

* * *

 

Dara  _loathed_ dancing, but she still danced - with Brandon, and with Ben, and with Howland Reed who was an even worse dancer than she was herself.

It wasn't that she lacked grace, or even coordination - she completely lacked any semblance of musicality, which was made even more irritating by her siblings all being more than proficient, even Ben, who was all knees and elbows.

"My lady?"

She looked up, wondering if Elbert had finally been shamed into doing his duty - gods be good, even  _Robert_ had asked her to dance! - and was stunned to find the dark-haired man from earlier standing over her, watching her curiously and smiling.

"I am afraid I did not pause to introduce myself earlier," he said, sweeping a bow as he continued, "Ser Asric of House Dayne of Starfall, my lady."

"Lady Eddara of House Stark of Winterfell," she returned, offering her hand and blushing when he raised it to his lips. "May I help you with something, ser?"

"Well, my lady," he said, smiling wider than before, "I am bereft of a dance partner - the Prince has stolen away the Princess Elia, and I cannot think who else I might dance with."

Dara felt her eyebrow lift, and fought back a smile.

"I am sure you would have no shortage of partners, ser, if you were only to look a little further," she said wryly. "For instance, to our left-"

"Oh, dance with me, Lady Eddara Stark of Winterfell!" he laughed, holding out his hands just as he had after he knocked her over. "I promise you, I am quite good enough for both of us - I saw you dancing with your brothers, and I swear that I am a better partner than either of them. Do dance with me, my lady."

 

* * *

 

She told him to call her Dara, shy Eddara, and she danced with the reluctance of a girl with a prettier sister and a betrothed who seemed more interested in other women, and then she refused to kiss him.

Asric thought he might be in love just for that, because he could not remember the last time a woman said no to him after he actively set out to charm her, betrothed or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A potential rewrite of "I Strove To Reach Her," because I had some thinky thoughts and realised I'd probably fucked myself over in several ways. Let me know if you like it and would like me to continue :)
> 
> Title and chapter title from "All Night" by Icona Pop


	2. Little grey fairy tales (and little white lies)

Dara clutched tight to Lya's wrist with one hand and Brandon's with the other, willing both to remain where they were, to behave appropriately.

But what was appropriate, when a prince of the realm had crowned a woman not his wife, not the mother of his child, as his Queen of Love and Beauty? Princess Elia sat by Queen Rhaella's side, eyes wide but otherwise wholly composed, but Dara could not even begin to imagine how the Princess was feeling. 

Her brother, Prince Oberyn of Dorne, was not so composed. His fury was plain to see, and Dara could not truly blame him - she was only relieved that he, like Brandon, like  _Robert,_ was directing his ire in the Prince's direction rather than in Lya's.

Brandon was all but vibrating with barely contained rage, but he held himself back, reaching across his body to cover her hand with his own - she was unsurprised to note that Ben, seated on Lya's other side, had taken their sister's other hand, and was relieved that Lya was as perturbed by the Prince's actions as she was herself.

Oh. Wait. 

Lya had a tick, when she was lying - her left eyebrow rose of its own accord, tilting just slightly upwards, something Dara knew and doubted anyone else did, because Dara knew Lya and Ben better even than they knew themselves.

Lya's eyebrow was raised. Dara felt sick and wished she had not noticed it, because she could not possibly wish to know her sister less.

 

* * *

 

Dara was exhausted by reining in Brandon's temper and trying to puzzle out Lya's curious behaviour by the time the feast that night arrived, and the suspicious glares every man, woman and child seemed to throw their way did not help.

Nor did Elbert's presence at her side.

"Looking for your paramour, my lady?" he sneered after a cup too many of ale. Dara had spent the meal looking about the massive hall, upset by her siblings' quietude and not in the mood for Robert's boistrousness, his eagerness to monopolise Lya's attention when it was turned entirely inwards.

"I do not know what you mean, my lord," she said cooly, leaning away from the stink of his breath, "but I do know that you have had more than enough to drink."

It hurt Dara more than she would have ever admitted that Elbert could be so cruel to her when he was perfectly charming to every other person he met - he was more outgoing than Jon, his uncle, and they reminded her oddly of Father and Bran.

With a jolt, she wondered if she was Catelyn Tully in this ensemble, and if so, was there a Barbrey Ryswell tucked away somewhere in the Vale?

"I saw you dance with him," he snarled under his breath, following after her, his hand coming to rest heavily on the edge of her seat. "Again and again, all night long. Did you give him what you have refused me time and again, even though it is rightfully mine, Eddara?"

She recoiled further, leaning back against Bran's arm, drawing his attention.

"Did you spread your legs for Asric Dayne, Eddara?" Elbert hissed, pressing so close Dara could feel the heat of him. "Did you act the whore you looked while dancing with him, my lady?"

"How  _dare_ you!" she snapped, glad of the sudden warmth of Bran's hand on hers, of him turning to settle firmly against her back. " _I_ am not the one who constantly dishonours our betrothal, Elbert!  _I_ am not the one who shames the other by blatantly taking lovers whenever the fancy takes me!  _I_ am not the one rumoured to have fathered a child with a woman not mine to have!"

"Were you any but my lord uncle's ward," Elbert said, voice sharp and cold as the winds that wailed through the Eyrie, "I would strike you for speaking so to me, Eddara. I am to be your lord husband-"

"And she your lady wife," Bran said, and Elbert paled to realise that her brother had heard his every word. "If ever such a threat to my sister's person passes your lips again, Lord Elbert, I will have your life in recompense. That is a promise."

 

* * *

 

The following morning, as they were preparing to depart - in haste, for Bran had the good sense to realise that it would be unwise to tarry when the King would likely not hold them in any great esteem after the Prince's display the day before - Brandon and Elbert seemed fast friends again, but Dara saw a new wariness in the manner her brother regarded her betrothed, a wariness he had once reserved solely for Robert. It pleased her, on a petty sort of level, to have Bran worry for her like that.

She and Bran had long since given up worrying for one another - they had  _relied on_ one another for far too long for that - but still, it was nice to know that he did think of her as his little sister still, not just his friend and companion and partner in duty.

"I will miss you, Ned," Lya sighed, folding herself into Dara's arms and tucking her head neatly under her chin - it pleased Dara so much that they still fit together like this, and pleased her even more that Lya had never grown out of calling her Ned, as she had from she was barely more than a babe. "Winterfell is so lonely without you."

"You have Ben, little one," Bran reminded her with a grin, shoving her away gently and sweeping Dara into his arms - oh, she would miss Bran most of all, her wild, wilful Bran, and she clutched tight to him and wished she might simply ride home to Winterfell with them.

"Ben isn't  _Ned_ ," Lya pouted, giggling when Ben pushed her aside to hug Dara goodbye - which near brought Dara to tears, because her little Benjy, he was two-and-twelve and near as tall as her, near  _grown!_ She had missed so much of them, of Lya and Ben, and it hurt her to know that she would miss still more, miss near everything more.

"Behave yourselves," she warned them as she stood between Robert and Elbert, as her brothers and sister mounted up to leave her behind. "I would not have Father write to me in despair, begging me to come home simply because he cannot control the pair of you."

"Then we shall behave  _terribly_ so you  _must_ come home, Ned," Lya laughed, reaching out to take Dara's hand one last time. "Do not be so long away again, Ned, I could not bear to be without you for such a long while again."

 _Nor I you_ , Dara did not say, but it was true, she did not know how she had managed such a long while away from home.

 

* * *

 

"Your sweet lady has departed, my friend," Oberyn said, spilled across a chair with a goblet dripping from his fingers. "And taken her unfortunately honoured sister with her, I hope."

"She is not  _my_ lady," Asric sighed, turning back to the window. He had not had a chance to dance with Eddara Stark again last night - none had dared approach the Starks at all, save for those bound to them by betrothals. "And she is for the Vale, not the North - she is Lord Arryn's foster-daughter, fool, as well you know."

"And betrothed to his heir," Oberyn said, rising fluidly and coming to stand at Asric's side, his arm sliding around his waist as a comfort. "A dangerous enemy to make, Asric - best you stay away from her."

"Aye," Asric agreed, shaking his head. "It would not do to follow the Prince's example, would it?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Attracting Flies' by AlunaGeorge


	3. Echoes of screams before me

Elbert had been trying very hard to atone for his cruelty since their return to the Eyrie - it had been half a year, more, and he had done surprisingly well. Dara had come to understand why he was so popular, and had been painfully relieved at the cessation of whispers about his stream of mistresses.

"My lord uncle has a great many such books, Dara," Elbert told her eagerly, holding open the door of the library until she was through, letting it drift shut with a soft thud. They likely should not have been alone together like this - oh, how Bran and Lya would tease her if they ever were to know! - but Dara knew that Lord Jon trusted her and Elbert both, and Elbert had been nothing but respectful since his disgraceful display that night at Harrenhall.

Thinking of Harrenhall brought two memories of striking eyes, as it always did - Prince Rhaegar's, staring so intensely at Lya as he set the crown of blue roses in her lap, and Asric Dayne's, as he bowed low and pressed an earnest kiss to Dara's knuckles in farewell.

"They are called  _atlases,_ my lord," she corrected Elbert teasingly, dragging her mind to the present - there was no sense in dwelling on the thrill Asric Dayne's presence had set coursing under her skin, after all. Dara was to wed Elbert, and while he had never made her thrill in any way at all, she hoped they might find contentment together. They could be friends, she knew, even if there was never to be any passion between them, and they would have their children, too, and she needed little more than that.

Passion and such things had always been more Bran and Lya's domain than Dara's or Ben's, and she was happy to leave them to it.

They passed a pleasant enough afternoon perusing Lord Jon's vast collection of maps - Elbert scampered up and down the bookcase ladders like a squirrel, and laughed aloud when she told him so - and Robert was amusingly miffed that they had not invited him to join them. He gave up when they laughed him into admitting that he would have been terribly bored, and Dara wondered how it was that not even a year ago she had been dreading her life here after she wed.

Surely, she thought as she brushed her hair for bed, her future was not so bleak as she had feared it would be.

 

* * *

 

And then came the letter from her father.

"How can Lya be  _gone?"_ she said desperately, waiting in vain for Lord Jon, kind, helpless Lord Jon, to offer her some explanation when there was none to be had. "My sister, she, she cannot be  _gone!_ "

Once she has calmed, once she had read and reread and read once more the letter in her father's hand, she took stock of all that she knew for certain. 

She was due to leave soon, to go to Riverrun for Brandon's wedding to Catelyn Tully. Dara had met Lady Catelyn several times and liked her very much, and thought she was a better wife than Brandon, with Barbrey Ryswell hidden in Barrowton, deserved.

Mayhaps Lya had left Winterfell ahead of time? It was the sort of silly thing she would do, driving everyone to madness for fear of what might have befallen her only to turn up utterly unscathed...

But there had been talk, according to Father, talk of strangers in strange clothes with strange accents about Winterfell,  _come home, daughter, you are needed in Winterfell._

"I am stronger in Winterfell," she thought aloud, pacing her rooms with Father's letter clutched in her hand. "The pack survives, and I am all alone here."

 

* * *

 

Dara awoke the following morning after a fitful night to more of Robert's abominable,  _infuriating_ rage, and a letter from Elbert.

"I will find her!" Robert snarled, storming up and down Lord Jon's solar in a frightening temper as Dara fought to remain composed, fought not to lose  _her_ temper.

She wondered if Robert had ever seen her truly angry or upset. She did not think so, and so she decided that it was high time that he did.

"If you cannot control yourself,  _leave,_ " she bit out, and he halted entirely in sheer surprise.

"Dara-"

"Lya is my  _sister,_ Robert," she said, torn between agony and fury. "Please, Robert,  _please,_ I cannot think with you pacing and shouting,  _please."_

He surprised her by subsiding, throwing himself into the nearest chair with a huff, and she turned to Elbert's letter.

"He is with Brandon," she said, turning to Lord Jon. "Or, at least, he will be with Bran very soon - they were supposed to go to Riverrun, weren't they? For the wedding?"

"Aye, child," Lord Jon said, crouching before her and taking her hands, "but I fear they are southbound now. Bound for King's Landing, little wolf."

"Why...?"

"You did not read all of your father's letter, did you?" he asked, looking miserable and pained and sorry. "My poor girl - it seems that Prince Rhaegar was the one to take your sister."

Dara remembered deep eyes in the shadow of Harrenhall, deep, wild eyes boring into Lya, and she screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Duet' by Everything Everything


	4. Well they tried to kill my brothers

Father and Brandon were dead already by the time Dara reached Winterfell, and the King had called for her and Ben and Robert's heads.

"He took Lya, Dara!" Ben sobbed into her neck, after she had coaxed him to change into his nightshirt and slip under the covers of his bed. "He took her, I know he did, she would not have left me, not as-"

He choked back further words, left  _not as you and Bran did_ hanging heavy and tight around Dara's neck, like the noose that had taken Bran from them. Dara knew he meant them with no malice, that he was still too young to truly understand the merit of herself and Bran fostering away from Winterfell - her in particular, as she had been the future Lady of the Eyrie from she was little more than a babe-in-arms, and it had served her well to know the place that she would administer while her husband-to-be ruled the Vale of Arryn.

But Ben, her little Benjy, he was but two-and-ten and far, far too young for all of this. A child his age did not deserve such a terrible responsibility to be left on his skinny, bony shoulders, shoulders that promised to be near as broad as Bran's had been but for now simply made his boyish frame all the more awkward as they waited for the rest of him to catch up. 

"Sleep, sweetling," she sighed, pressing a kiss to his untidy hair and untangling his fist from her skirts. "Sleep well, for we have much to do on the morrow."

He barely murmured as she eased herself off the bed and tip-toed across to the door, but as soon as she had closed him away for the night she darted down the corridor to Bran's room. She had long sought solace there, ever since Mother had died all that time ago, and instinct overpowered knowledge. She ran, truly ran, as fast as she could with her skirts twirling about her legs, desperately trying to quell the tremors in her hands that had started as she sang Ben to sleep.

Father had always tipped her under the chin and smiled, called her  _the little mother,_ when he saw her settling Ben and Lya for bed. 

There was no solace to be found in Bran's room, not truly, but his pillows smelled of him, of horse and ale and laughter and  _home,_ and that eased the ache in her heart just enough to allow her to rest for a little while, just enough that she could face the prospect of a Winterfell without him and Father for Ben's sake, and for Lya's.

For Lya's most of all, if Dara dared think true.

 

* * *

 

Maester Walys was abed with a fever when Dara joined Ben and Ser Rodrick in Father's solar the following morning, and Dara took that as a bad omen.

"I would write to my foster father," Dara said firmly when Ser Rodrick spoke of marching south. "Lord Jon will have wise counsel, and doubtless it will be tempered by a desire to avoid any further- further losses."

Father's face and Bran's filled her gaze, and then Elbert's swam into sight, turning her stomach - she had hardly spared a thought for her betrothed, for he had been as a new friend, barely even that, whereas Father and Bran, they had been...

And  _Lya._ How was Dara to mourn Elbert when so much of her was caught up in preserving what was left of her family?

For a brief, foolish moment, she was jealous of Catelyn Tully in far away Riverrun, Catelyn who was free to mourn Bran because she had no other losses to shed tears for. She felt immediately guilty, of course, because she  _liked_ Catelyn and did not doubt the sincerity of her grief for Brandon, but Catelyn still had brother and sister and father, with little chance of losing any of them in the near future.

_She has lost her good marriage just as you have,_ Dara reminded herself,  _and such a thing is dangerous for women of our rank._

 

* * *

 

The scorch marks would not leave the stone, no matter how the servants scrubbed. Asric made a point of entering the throne room once a day, to pay his respects to the men who he had watched murdered.

Watched, and done nothing. He loathed himself for that.

Brandon Stark had been his sister's image, and that had near driven Asric to defy the King and flee - he had been unable to keep from dwelling on shy Eddara since Harrenhall, while all the realm was abuzz about her sister, and to imagine her face twisted in that same agony had caused him more pain than anything he had ever known, save for his lady mother's death.

The King was mad, they all knew. They had all known that for a very long time, after all, that he had been mad since Duskendale, but seeing him burn the Lord Paramount of the North and hang his heir for their  _rightful_ defiance had sent a shock of sorts through the court.

Nobody truly knew what to do. Asric wished more than anything that Arthur were here, or that he were at home at Starfall, cowardly though that was, because at least with Arthur here or there with Allem and little Allyria, Asric knew who he was. 

Here, he was a knight, sworn to the protection of the innocent, who had stood by and let a mad, evil fool murder two men guilty only of caring for their kin, and he did not recognise himself anymore.

 

* * *

 

And then, Arthur was there.

"You cannot let anyone know I am here," he whispered, locking Asric's door behind him. "What you must do is leave, as soon as possible, Asric - get home to Starfall, I have already told Allem that you are on your way..."

Asric watched in unabashed astonishment as Arthur whirled about his chambers, gathering clothes and things that he would need for a journey.

"Did she go with him willingly?" he asked without meaning to, because Asric may have had a reputation as a womaniser, but he had never once taken a woman unless she was enthusiastically willing. He liked Rhaegar, respected him, but if the Prince had taken Lady Eddara's sister against her will, he would hate him just as much as he hated the King.

Arthur did not answer, and for the first time in his life, Asric saw his brother as something more than an ideal to live up to.

He saw Arthur as a man who allowed himself to be party to evils for the sake of his white cloak, but who forsook that same blasted cloak to dip his wick where he ought not.

"The King will hold Elia and the children hostage to Dorne for this," Asric said, trembling with fury. "Your wife and your children, in all but name, brother. Will you hide behind your vows and leave her at his mercy?"

Arthur had never struck him before, not since they were small boys playing at rough-and-tumble while Allem learned Starfall at Mama's side, but he struck him now, the back of his hand like steel across Asric's face.

"Do you think this is  _easy_ for me, Asric?" he snarled. "You are  _leaving_ for Starfall  _tonight,_ because you are the only one I can keep safe, and I will be  _damned_ if I fail Mother as I have failed Elia, do you understand?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Daniel in the Den' by Bastille


	5. A lot of starving faithful

Dara allowed Lord Jon and poor foolish Robert to believe that she was staying safe at Winterfell. Ben was more than capable of forging her writing, which ought to have concerned her more than it did, and he had agreed to remain in Winterfell and aid her deception.

Dara had called those most loyal to her - to Bran and to Lya, in truth, for she was so long gone from Winterfell as to almost be a stranger to many of their bannermen and guardsmen and servants - and picked out a small handful of them, six in total, and shared with them the burden that she did not dare entrust to any other person: together, she informed them, they would help her find her sister.

Oh, Dara knew that Robert doubtless intended on finding Lya himself, a hero's rescue for her sister like something from a song, but Dara also knew that Robert would be busy fighting the war, too busy to concern himself with the hunt for Lya. Dara did not dare risk word getting to him that she had taken off into the wilds with such a small band of men to guard her - Ethan Glover, who had been Bran's squire; Willam Dustin who had so recently wed wild Barbrey Ryswell, Brandon's once-paramour; Theo Wull, who flirted ineptly and so harmlessly that she could only laugh; Martyn Cassel, who knew her better than mayhaps any of her other companions; Mark Ryswell, who would have much liked to flirt more seriously than dear Theo; and odd little Howland Reed, who pronounced that he owed a debt of honour to Lya and had somehow known the truth of her mission even though she had not thought to tell him of it.

They were a strange company, but Dara found herself growing fond of them. Martyn and Willam in particular made for easy company, she thought, because she had known them as a child, because they did not watch themselves about her as carefully as Mark and Ethan in particular did - they had known Bran, after all, but they had also known her and Bran together, and that made all the difference.

Still, none of them were particularly enthused with the part of her plan that involved her joining their search for Lya.

 

* * *

 

"Rhaenys and Aegon are not mine," Arthur said, once they were out on the water and had been for several days - Asric thought they were somewhere south of Storm's End, but he was a poor sailor and spent too much time vomiting over the rail to be certain of anything much.

That, however, drew him out of his sickness-induced stupor.

"But you and the princess-"

"We were never lovers," Arthur said, his jaw so tight that Asric knew it pained him to speak the words. "Elia and I... I was aware that the Princess would never have allowed her to marry me, but we. Well. I never allowed us to be lovers."

Asric breathed heavily through his nose to calm his stomach as he waited for Arthur to continue.

"She took me as her confidant after she wed Rhaegar," he explained. "She was far from home, and Aerys would not allow her any companions from Dorne - she could not go to Lewyn, of course, but I... I was her friend. I have always been her friend."

"I was certain that you were lovers," Asric admitted. "So is Oberyn, for that matter - he told me so, says he has never seen a pair so clearly in love before."

"And Oberyn is an authority on such matters, is he?" Arthur sneered. "The man has a woman in every port and holdfast-"

"That is not the point," Asric cut in. "If we believe it, who's to say that others don't?"

 

* * *

 

Dara's first stop on her way south was Riverrun.

Or at least, she had planned on making it Riverrun, and had refrained upon hearing that Lord Jon was to be there to take Catelyn Tully to wife.

Dara loved Jon Arryn almost as much as she had her own lord father, but she could not shake her misgivings - he was old, old enough to be Catelyn's sire and more, and while he was a kind man with a good heart, he was not given to affection. The Eyrie, too, was isolated, isolated and sometimes lonely, even for someone as solitary by nature as Dara.

And so, from Greywater Watch they set out not for Riverrun, but for White Harbour – and hopefully not for Lord Manderly's abundant hospitality.

 

* * *

 

Starfall smelled of salt and peach blossom and home, and Asric would have been lying had he said that he was unhappy to be there.

That did not mean that he felt a coward for hiding away when there was a war to be fought. When there were people he loved to be defended from madness and murderers.

"Arthur sought only to protect you, Asric," Allem said in his quiet way, as they sat atop the Palestone Tower and looked out at the sea. "You know how he worries."

"I can protect myself," Asric said furiously, loathing that Allem had sided with Arthur on this.

"And were I still in King's Landing, I might offer the Princess some protection, too, from one loyal to her and her alone-"

"And risk your own life, if the King's madness turns on Elia? If the rebels are somehow victorious, do you think they would spare the Princess or her champion? You are not so foolish as this, little brother, do not allow your pride to rob you of your wits."

"Why do you call Asric foolish, Allem?"

They turned together, and Asric held out his arms to Allyria - she was so small, their little sister, and she curled up in his lap and sighed contentedly as though he had never spent a moment away during her short little life.

"Asric is very clever," she informed Allem. "Papa always says so, and Papa is always right."

"What does Father say, Lyria?" Asric asked, unable to help himself - he knew what was likely coming, but he had to be sure.

"That you're too clever for your own good," she answered promptly, beaming up at him. "Might we go swimming on the morrow, Asric?"

 

* * *

 

Arthur arrived weeks later, just as the first sheen of dawn was silvering the skyline away far to the east.

"I have need of a midwife," he said bluntly, without greeting or enquiry after Father's health. "A good one, not that charlatan that was in charge of Mother's care when Allyria was born."

Asric felt sick. If the Lady Lyanna had not willingly departed Winterfell with the Prince, and if she was now with child - how could Arthur remain loyal to a man not only guilty of abducting a woman barely more than a child, if more than a child at all, but of  _raping_ her?

Allem looked queasy at the thought as well, but he departed without a word to search for a midwife - there were several in the town by necessity, for there were always a great number of children being born in a busy port town.

"Do not dare look at me like that," Arthur said sharply. "Do you think that I enjoy this? I have no option-"

"You could hold the vows you took when you were anointed a knight in higher regard than those sworn to a madman when you were raised to the white cloak," Asric suggested bitterly. "You could be the man our mother raised you to be, rather than the man King's Landing made you."

Allem had to pry them apart when he returned, and Asric nearly leapt for Arthur again when his brother tossed a folded letter at his feet, and snapped that Lady Lyanna wished for it to be delivered to her family at Winterfell at their earliest convenience. The disdain, the anger, Asric almost couldn't breathe for the shock of the stranger that Arthur had been revealed to be.

Arthur as Asric knew him would never have stood by and allowed a man to rape an innocent woman, would he?

 

* * *

 

The Whispers was a barren, eerie wreck of a place, far more frightening to Dara's mind than Harrenhall could ever hope to be, but rumours of Lya's whereabouts had led her here from White Harbour, and she had no choice but to follow them.

"There are signs that someone spent time here, my lady," Martyn informed her. "Ash of a fire, marks where tent poles might have been set - three, mayhaps four, men I'd say but it's possible they had a woman with them too, aye."

"And horses, as well," Buckets said, shaking his head. "I and young Ethan followed them trails a ways out, we did, and Mark too, and they seems good big steeds with a long stride."

Dara looked over her shoulder to their horses, steady, sturdy Northern mounts, none exceptional save Willam's beautiful red. They would never catch up the the Prince and his accomplices.

_I will find you, Lya,_ she thought miserably.  _I will._

Howland appeared from somewhere other than where the others had searched, something heavy in his hands - a cloak? Where had he found a  _cloak?_

"This was beneath the heart tree, Dara," he said quietly, handing it to her. It had once been Stark white, she could see, and was stitched with a direwolf.

It was stained with red, about level with where a woman of Lya's height's hips would have been had she been laid out on it.

"So he wed her, then," Dara heard herself say, feeling sick. "He wed her before he raped her."

She swallowed thickly, shook her head, and looked to Buckets and Mark.

"Where were the trails headed?" she asked, folding the cloak up as small as she could - she would burn it as soon as she could. "Where did it seem that they have taken my sister?"

"Back to the coast," Mark said, folding his arms and tucking his chin to his chest. "But not towards where they landed - they were headed more southwise, I think."

Dara looked south of where she stood, right atop the edge of the cliff.

"Dragonstone," she said. "How are we to enter Dragonstone?"

 

* * *

 

Asric had long known Larra Blackmont - they had been children together, in the Water Gardens under Princess Ariella's watchful gaze, they and Oberyn and dozens of others - and so he was unsurprised when she came to him with a strange request.

Larra's hand had always been near indecipherable, but he puzzled it out as best he could and was astonished to find that Arthur had been sighted away up the Prince's Pass beyond Blackmont, near in blasted Nightsong, with a woman with fair hair in tow - the midwife Allem had found for him, no doubt.

Well, at least Asric knew where the Prince would keep the Lady Lyanna prisoner. If only he could get her away from four of the finest swordsmen in the realm without both of them dying. He wondered if the raven carrying Lady Lyanna's letter had reached Winterfell yet, and if so, what it had contained.

 

* * *

 

Sharp Point was near as desolate as the Whispers had been, for all their beacon burning day and night was a magnificent sight. House Bar Emmon gave shelter and food to any sailor in need, no questions asked, and Dara was glad of it.

Buckets had claimed her as his wife to avoid her presence being questioned, which had made Mark pink with jealousy and brought a smile to her face. She had not smiled in so long that it had felt strange, and that had saddened her.

"Where do we go from here?" she asked Howland, who always seemed to know. "How am I to find Lya when we have no trail to follow?"

"Dorne," Howland said. "The very last place any would suspect the Prince of bringing her, Dara, will be the very place we find her. Somewhere in the deserts and mountains of Dorne, that's where Lyanna is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Take Me To Church' by Hozier


	6. Dragging me away from Heaven's door

The Stormlands were nothing that Robert had always boasted of.

“I can’t see beyond arm’s length in this infernal rain,” Martyn complained, and Dara was of a mind to agree with him - they’d travelled down along the coast from Sharp Point, but every mile led them deeper into torrential downpours and driving winds. Travelling at any speed was next to impossible, and it was driving her mad to think that they were being kept from Lya by the gods themselves.

 _No_ , she reminded herself, _by the Seven, mayhaps as punishment for keeping our gods and not honouring them._

Buckets had taken to riding between Dara and the wind, using himself as a shield to save her from the worst of it, and she was grateful to him for that, just as she was grateful that the rain and wind meant she had an excuse to call for more frequent stops, and a supply of fresh water whenever it was called for - travelling was not making her bleeding worse or better, but it was simply more awkward for having to hide it from a troupe of men who seemed to fly into a panic if she was out of their sight for more than half a moment.

She wished more of their panicked fretting was directed at Lya, though - Dara had her own ways of looking after herself, but Lya was a child still, and a child in the clutches of a madman at that.

But still, it was nice to be looked after for once - Dara was so used to looking after others, Bran and Lya and Ben and Father, Robert and Lord Jon and Elbert, and it was so odd to be the one being cared for.

“Lady Dara,” Ethan called - oh, Bran had all but beaten respect of his sisters into his squire, Dara didn’t think she’d ever teach Ethan to call her just by her name as the rest of their company did now - as he galloped towards their rudimentary shelter among the trees, wiping rain from his eyes as he swung to the ground. “Lady Dara, I bring grave news - there is no way we might pass by Storm’s End.”

“What in the world do you mean, Ethan?” she asked, confused. “Did you not present my letter to Lord Stannis?”

“I could not,” Ethan said. “Storm’s End is being held to siege, my lady, by the Tyrells - I did not dare venture closer to identify more banners, but it seemed as if there were enough different ones for the whole of the Reach to be there, my lady.”

“We will need to divert inland,” Martyn said, looking even graver than he had while cursing the rain. “If they hold the land around Storm’s End, doubtless they’re using the Redwyne fleet to hold the seas - we have no way of getting around them without going miles out of our way.”

“We will have to go to Dorne by well-travelled ways,” Buckets said, crouching low and staring into the fire. “I did not want to go by the main roads, but if we are driven far enough inland we will have no choice, we won’t.”

Dara sighed, pressing her face into her hands for a moment before straightening up and drawing her knife.

“The Prince’s Pass then,” she said, watching the firelight gleam on the blade. “We will enter Dorne that way.”

 

* * *

 

 

Larra Blackmont’s arrival was not a surprise, but Asric still half wished that she had not come to Starfall. That meant having to shield Lyria even more, meant having to either take Father, in his illness, into their confidence, or treat him as a fool and leave him ignorant.

“Do walk with me, Asric,” she said one morning, some three days after her arrival. “I wish to reminisce of times past, and to badmouth that scoundrel who calls himself a prince.”

The peach orchard was lovely, as always, and Asric was unsurprised when Larra came to a halt right at the furthest point from the castle.

“I have spoken to Allem,” she said, “and he agrees that we cannot act without knowing more about this… Situation.”

“Such a delicate term for such indelicate circumstances,” he said wryly. “My brother is aiding a rapist and holding an innocent woman hostage. You may as well call him for the bastard he has proven himself to be, Larra.”

She seemed shocked by his anger, but she said nothing of it.

“We - that is, Allem and I, we feel that it would be best if you were the one to investigate the goings on at the tower.”

“You and he would be missed,” Asric agreed. “And Arthur is more likely to believe that I have come to check on his well-being than he would Allem.”

“Precisely,” Larra said, reaching over to take his hands. “I know that this must hurt you, Asric, and Allem as well, but the tower where they are keeping the Stark girl is on _my_ lands, if only barely, and I know not who else to trust in this - please. You are my oldest friend, save Oberyn, and I can hardly go to him about this, can I?”

 

* * *

 

“Twas a viper,” Buckets said ominously, gently shutting Mark’s dull eyes. “That does be a bad omen, Eddara Stark, and you had best recognise that.”

Dorne, mayhaps especially after the driving rains of the Stormlands, was unbearably hot, even with her hair shorn short and particularly with the heavy bindings pressing her breasts back to her chest to make her less identifiably a woman, and Dara blamed that for her temper as much as she did sweet Mark’s death.

“I cannot afford to recognise that, my friend,” Dara said shortly, pulling Mark’s blanket over his face. “We still have my sister to find - we will not be able to dig this ground, so find enough stones to build a cairn. We will… Build a cairn, please. I…”

Mark had asked for her hand just the day before the snake bit him, through the wool of his breeches right above his boot, and Dara was so confused about her feelings for him just now that she did not even think she could grieve. It would not have been terrible to be his wife, for he was sweet and kind, once he had overcome his initial fascination with her and realised that she had a mind, not just a pair of teats.

She had just wanted to find Lya. She had not expected friends and would-be lovers. She had just wanted to find what was left of her and Ben’s family and go home.

But life had not been so simple as that since Harrenhall, and she wished that they had never visited that cursed place at all so as to be spared its ills.

 

* * *

 

It had taken near to a fortnight to reach the tower where Arthur and the rest were holding Lady Lyanna, because by necessity Asric had made a great production of visiting Blackmont with Larra and so had been forced to detour by boat along the Torentine before he could turn east for his final destination.

Larra packed him off with a fine horse and provisions enough for a full moon’s turn, and he had set of heavy-hearted to find what sort of evils his brother, his Arthur, was preserving.

Asric had lain with many women, some of whom he should not have pursued, but he would never have pressed his suit with any woman who was unwilling, and would have - indeed, had - defended a woman who was the object of unwanted attentions. To think that Arthur was, by his very presence and silence, condoning such a thing…

Asric had always loathed the very existence of Ghaston Grey, but he could understand it now. To think of Rhaegar, who behaved as though he were more than just a man, raping and abusing a woman with Eddara Stark’s soft eyes… It was unthinkable. He would not think of it.

He set up camp not far from the tower, prolonging the torture of not knowing and yet unwilling to know, and slept fitfully in the cool of the night with the crickets chirping.

The morning was bright and hot, and the sunshine glimmered on pale armour and a pale sword and shone on dark hair spilling from a high-up window.

When Asric crept as close as he dared, he could pick out only five people - Arthur, gleaming white in the harsh sun, old Gerold and sharp Oswell, the little midwife, and the Lady Lyanna, who never left her room, never mind the tower.

Rhaegar was gone, likely to finally partake in this war he had caused, and Asric was terrified by the sudden realisation that he hoped Rhaegar would die. He deserved to die for what he had done to the poor child in the tower, and for what he had made of good men like Arthur and Gerold and Oswell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from 'End Credits' by Chase & Status feat. Plan B


	7. Collecting your victims

They lost Ethan next, and then Martyn fell desperately ill with the same sickness that had stolen Ethan away.

"It's this blasted heat," Willam said, wiping sweat from his brow after laying the final stone on Martyn's cairn. "We're not made for it, Lady Dara, we surely aren't."

She was inclined to agree - the heat would have been bad enough had it not been for the bindings on her chest, for the difficulties they had faced in finding water safe to drink, for the blasted  _sun_ that had burned her whole face red and peeling. 

"We must continue," she said helplessly. "We cannot let Mark and Ethan and Martyn's deaths have been for nothing."

"They shan't be," Howland promised her, passing around a little pot of salve that eased the burning on all their faces and forearms. "We will find Lyanna, Dara, I know we will."

Howland's unwavering faith in their mission had been the one thing that had kept Dara from despairing when sweet Mark and shy Ethan and poor dear Martyn fell, and she relied on him more than she would have liked - not because he made her feel as though she would owe him some great debt when all this was over, but simply because she had never been used to relying on anyone much save herself, and sometimes Bran. To have someone not her brother taking care of her was odd, to say the least.

Gods but she missed Bran. Even when she had been at the Eyrie, she had sent more ravens to Bran than she had to home, and to think that she would never again receive a rambling, over-telling letter in his appalling, near-illegible hand broke her heart.

 _If I do not hurry,_ she reminded herself,  _I will never see another scrap of Lya's perfect script._

They were halfways down the Prince's Pass, and halfways dead, and it seemed to Dara as though they would reach the end of only one journey. She did not yet know which one.

 

* * *

 

Asric had been coming and going between Blackmont and Rhaegar's accursed tower for near a week, learning how Arthur and the others worked their shifts, trying his best to discern a means of releasing Lady Lyanna from her captivity, and he had learned little aside from the hilarious fact that Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, the noble Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, liked to sing about Florian and Jonquil and other such romantic heroes while he polished Vigilance, the silver blade as white as his armour in the sharp sunlight.

Larra had, in the past two days, taken to riding out with him when he departed Blackmont at sunset, determined to do all she could to help - she felt that mayhaps she, looking at the tower and its guards without a military eye, might see some little thing that Arthur and his cohorts had missed.

Instead, she saw something else altogether, as they rode along the mountain path that cut into the cliff above the Prince's Pass.

"Asric," she said, sounding surprised. "Asric, look - there are northerners down there!"

To Larra, as to any person of Dornish blood, anyone from north of the Marches was a northerner, but Larra could not have known just how accurate she was in that moment.

"They're passing onto Manwoody lands," Larra said. "You know how fond of the Martells Dagos and Myles are - they'll slaughter any northerners without even finding their names. Come, Asric, we must halt them."

"Larra-"

"I will not see innocents murdered," she said shortly. "And besides, one of them is a woman - the second one, she rides as differently to her companions as I ride to you."

Asric could not see any great difference between the second of the little company and the others, but then, he could see no difference between himself and Larra. 

They turned from the path and headed down towards the Pass, and it was not until they were near on the valley floor that Asric was struck by a sudden, horrible thought.

 _Surely she would not be so foolish._ He had thought there was a fine mind behind those fine eyes of Dara Stark's, but if this  _was_ her, if she  _were_ so foolish...

 

* * *

 

"Sweet Theo," Dara begged, "please stay strong just a little longer."

Buckets was doubled over his horse, nothing left in his stomach but every bit he had eaten and drank for the last day or two left on the road behind them - one more of them struck down with the illness, and Dara was terrified that rather than finding Lya, it was she who would be found, as a skeleton along the side of the Prince's Pass.

 _Mayhaps we should have taken the Boneway_ she thought hysterically, and her laughter came out as a hoarse croak. She was so thirsty, but only Howland seemed to know which pools - of which there were surprisingly many, hidden in little lees and alcoves along the cliff to the west and the feet of the mountains to the east - were safe to drink from, and he was off ahead, scouting for enemies.

"I am trying to do my best, Lady Dara," Buckets teased faintly, a mockery of his usual grin lifting his face for a moment. "But it is hard in this heat. These mountains be all wrong, they do."

That, she  _did_ laugh at, and so did Willam - Buckets had complained incessantly that mountains should be capped in snow, that the passes should be full of ice, and it was a good sign, surely, that he continued to do so.

Howland returned in a cloud of dust, his face as red with exertion as it was with sunburn, panting as hard as his horse.

"We're to have company, Dara," he said. "Two riders, coming from the west - they seem to have come right out of the mountains, and will be upon us in moments if we do not hurry."

Dara hesitated - what if these strangers were not enemies, as Howland clearly feared? - and looked to Buckets.

She would risk that. Either they would all die, or Buckets might live and they might find Lya.

Well, either way it was likely that they would all die, but she would grasp any opportunity to save her companions that arose.

 

* * *

 

Asric was  _furious_ when he saw that yes, she  _was_ that foolish.

He knew it was ridiculous - he had no claim to her, no reason to fret over her safety so, but something about Eddara Stark's quiet smiles had caught him and held him, and so he did not care that is was ridiculous.

"You blind  _idiot!"_ he bellowed, kicking Selwyn into a gallop (gods, Father had laughed to hear that Asric had named his horse for him) and riding as hard as he could towards Eddara  _bloody_ _stupid_ Stark. "What are you thinking? What are you  _doing?!"_

She was pale under all that terrible sunburn and windburn and sandblast - had they never heard of veils? - and her eyes were huge in her long face.

"I- Ser Asric?"

"Yes, yes," he fumed, drawing Selwyn so sharply to a halt by her horse that he reared magnificently - any other time, and Asric would have been delighted, would have laughed, but not now. Now, Arthur was helping a rapist, Rhaegar  _was_ the rapist, and only Allem and Larra seemed to find true fault in those things as Asric did.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded instead, calming Selwyn with a hand on the horse's neck so he could fix Dara with the sort of glare that he had learned from his mother.

"I am searching for my sister, ser," she said, shock cooling into a very tight sort of anger, "and unless you are here to offer help to my companions and myself, I would ask that you leave us be."

Asric's stomach went sideways, and his anger petered out as Larra caught him up.

He let his veil fall and pressed his hands over his face instead.

"Lady Blackmont," he said, "I should like to introduce the Lady Eddara Stark, and her companions, who are unfamiliar to me. They hunt for the Lady Lyanna Stark, my lady."

Larra's breath caught audibly, and she too dropped her veil.

"Lady Stark," she said, holding out a hand in greeting. "It would seem that we have much to discuss."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from 'Monster' by Paramore


	8. Took your soul and left nothing behind

Asric watched Lady Dara watch the horizon. Rhaegar's tower was not visible, but Larra had pointed out roughly where it lay and Dara had not looked away ever since.

"Has there been news of the war?"

He shrugged, even though she would not see it. "The Reach holds Storm's End to siege, and has since near the war began. There have been battles fought, largely won by the rebels, and they say the King is twice as mad as he ever was."

He hesitated.

"I was sorry to hear of your loss, my lady," he said. "Your brother was a good man, as I am sure your lord father was."

She made a small sound, a sort of hiccup that he thought might have been hiding a sob, and shook her head. It was strange to see her with short hair, because all of his memories of her (few though they were, often they were enough to fill his dreams) were of that long, handsome face surrounded by heavy brown hair that curled at her elbows, those bright-dark eyes watching him curiously, as though trying to decide what sort of creature he was.

"My brother was a blackguard, ser," she said, something like a smile curling the corner of her lips, "but he was mine, and I loved him."

 _Just as I will miss Arthur,_ Asric knew, and felt sick. Whether they both survived all this or not, Asric was certain that he and Arthur could never again be what they had once been to each other.

"I will take you to where they have your sister tomorrow night, my lady," he said, "but I do not know if I may be of any assistance beyond that - well, Larra's maester will care for your companion, and we might furnish you with supplies and clothing for your journey home, but..."

"I would ask one more favour of you, ser," she said, still staring out across the mountains from the balcony.

"Anything, my lady," he promised, wishing for some way to atone for Arthur's sins against her sister.

"Speak with your brother on my behalf," she said, finally turning from the view. "Speak with him, and beg that he let me see my sister."

 

* * *

 

The loose, filmy trousers Lady Blackmont had furnished Dara with were apparently cut from something called sandsilk, which slipped through her fingers like water and shone like it was polished, and the long length of cloth that wrapped around her head, covering her hair and face, and then wound about her shoulders and upper arms to tuck into the front of the shapeless tunic was made of the same.

Dara concentrated on this rather than think on how Asric-  _Ser_ Asric was getting on with his brother, below at the tower.

"A princess in a tower," she laughed bitterly to the open sky, twinkling hard and bright with stars. "Oh, Lya, you always did love your songs."

Asric had begged her to ask anything else of him but to speak with his brother, which had stunned her - she had thought them to be as close as she and Bran had been, but the obvious distaste he had for the thought of being near to Ser Arthur had taken her by surprise.

She had not relented. He was her best chance of getting to Lya, and she would not lose that chance, not now that she was so,  _so_ close.

Lady Blackmont had said that Lya was with child, and that she had looked sickly when she and Asric had gotten close enough to see, but Dara did not want to think of that. She only wanted to think of Lya being close to her, being within reach, and of being with her sister soon. Nothing else was allowed to enter her mind, not even the heat that had spread from the splay of Asric's hand on the small of her back.

 

* * *

 

"Asric," Arthur breathed. "You damned fool, what are you  _doing_ here?"

"I am not here on my own account," Asric said stoutly, sliding down from Selwyn's back and lowering his veil. "I come on behalf of Lady Eddara Stark of Winterfell, with a request."

Ser Gerold had come forward from his place by the tower door, hand on hilt, but he relaxed a little when he saw it was just Asric. _He has never seen me as anything but a foolish slut, a slave to my whims, much as he sees every Dornishman save Arthur and Lewyn._

"She wishes to see her sister, Arthur."

"None may see the Princess," Ser Gerold said, hand flashing back to his hilt - the seven-pointed star set into the junction of crossguard and hilt glimmered in the night, diamond-bright but not a diamond. "Particularly not a traitor's daughter."

"Rhaegar  _kidnapped and raped_ Lady Lyanna," Asric snarled, starting forward only to run smack into Arthur's outstretched arm.

"Enough," Arthur said quietly. "The Lord Commander has the right of it - the Prince left strict orders, Asric. I am sorry, but we are duty bound to obey."

"Then your vows to the King negate your vows to the Seven," Asric snapped. "Well, I took no vows save those of a  _knight,_ and I will stand by those even if it means turning on you, brother mine."

"Asric-"

"You chose your path, Arthur," he said, whirling away and swinging back into the saddle. "I have chosen mine, and it would seem that they cross most unhappily. I would say that I am sorry, but it is  _you_ who should be sorry."

And then he left, to collect Eddara and return to Blackmont, where he and Larra could make a plan.

If only to make up for Arthur's wrongs, he  _would_ get Eddara Stark to her sister, even if it killed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Run For Your Life' by the Creepshow.
> 
> PS: If anyone feels like maybe making coverart for an 8tracks playlist for this fic, I am fullofstoryshapes on tumblr and we should totally hook up.


	9. If somebody hurts you, I wanna fight

Sometimes, Asric forgot what an evil-minded bastard his oldest brother was.

Allem was years older than himself and Arthur, as much older than them as they were than Lyria, and had grown up as much with Doran Martell as they had with Elia and Oberyn, and it showed. Everything from his tendency to watch and wait and his ability to consider rather than react was as much Doran as Asric's hotheadedness and Arthur's sarcasm were Oberyn and Elia.

Asric's viciousness, when unmasked, was wholly Doran, too.

"Arthur is the next thing to a rapist," he said shortly. "And Ser Gerold is worse, because as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard he is the closest thing there is in the realm to the Prince's superior, save the King and the Hand. We attack quickly, and from a distance - whatever else they may be, they're the finest swords in the realm. We would be destroyed before them, and..."

"And Allem and I cannot face Arthur," Asric finished when Allem could not. "As you say, Allem - whatever else he may be, he is our brother. I will not turn kinslayer, and I will not allow it of you."

"I feel we ought send for Oberyn," Larra said, not for the first time. "With his knowledge, this could be a simple fight."

"It is cowardice to poison men from afar," one of Lady Eddara's companions - Lord Dustin, he had said - snarled. "Dishonourable."

"Forgive me, Lord Dustin, that I value my life above my honour," Allem said coolly. "What of you, Lady Stark? It is your sister we ride to rescue - what would you have us do?"

Dara's eyes were bright and hard.

"Whatever is necessary to save her, my lord."

 

* * *

 

Buckets was healing quickly in the care of Lady Blackmont's healer, and so it was that Dara found herself watching towards Lya's tower with all that remained of her companions.

"It will take Prince Oberyn near a moon's turn to arrive from Sunspear," she explained, aware of how distant her voice was - it was away over the mountains with Lya, just as her heart was - but not caring at all. "During that time we are to discover all we can about this tower - how they are getting their supplies, for example."

"I can watch it," Buckets said. "I am not much use for fighting, but I am little use for aught but sitting about, so I might find something to stare at."

She squeezed his hand tight in thanks, startling at the touch of Howland's hand on her shoulder.

"Dara," he said, "a month will make little difference - if Lya is with child, she will remain with child. If not, the Prince is gone north and cannot do her any more harm."

That was well for Howland to say - he did not know Robert, did not know how Robert would treat Lya if he knew she was with child. He would call her a whore, treat her as though she had dishonoured him and as though she were sullied, somehow, by something not her fault, not by any means her  _choice._

But he would still want to wed her, because Robert's love was an obsession. Some distance had helped her understand that, particularly when she compared his lengthy proclamations of devotion to his imagined version of Lya to how Elbert had treated her during that last year, to how Mark had treated her during their time on the road (to how Asric Dayne looked at her when he thought there was no one to see, not even her).

Dara despaired of saving Lya, because even if she took her sister from that blasted tower, even if she did that and Robert won this war, she would only be sending her sister into the arms of something very close to a madman.

Unless... Yes, that might work. Jon would agree with her, if nothing else, which might sway Robert.

 _Please, gods,_ she begged, wondering if they even remembered her when she was so far south,  _please gods, keep my Lya safe, and my Ben._

 

* * *

 

Oberyn arrived with the next full moon, in the middle of the night, and greeted Larra and Asric both with lingering kisses.

"So, you have found the whore that stole my sister's husband and put her life in danger," he said, looking from one of them to the other.

Asric's temper flared, but Larra caught him by the wrist and pressed her hand to Oberyn's chest - she had always been peacemaker between the two of them, even when they were hardly more than babes in the water under Princess Ariella's watch.

"Enough," she said firmly. "Lady Lyanna is no more a whore than I am, you horrible bastard. Rhaegar kidnapped and  _raped_ the poor girl, Oberyn! She is as much a prisoner in that blasted tower as Elia is in the Red Keep!"

And then, Asric experienced a total novelty - Oberyn went completely, perfectly still.

When Oberyn spoke again, it was in a quiet, taut voice that Asric had only heard a handful of times before, every one of them from Princess Ariella, gods rest her soul.

"There are few things more repulsive in this world," Oberyn said, the links of his half-forged maester's chain appearing from a hidden pocket of his clothes as they always did when he was thinking hard and deep, "than a rapist."

He asked for a week and a room with large windows, as far from the main living quarters as possible. Once Larra had provided the one and Asric promised the other, Oberyn kissed them both farewell and locked the door of the room behind him and his saddlebags.

 

* * *

 

"So this is the famous Eddara Stark of the fine eyes."

Dara turned away from Lya's tower to find Prince Oberyn leaning against the doorframe.

She had been hoping Asric might come to see her, but she supposed that he likely had things to discuss with Lord Dayne or Lady Blackmont. 

"Asric is in love with you, you know," Prince Oberyn said, springing away from the door and slinking into her room - there was something predatory about him, something simultaneously attractive and terrifying. "I do not think he even realises it, of course, but he is. He would wed you if you would accept him, I think."

Dara looked him hard in the eye - he had eyes like none she had ever seen before, night-black and noon-bright all at once.

"What is it you want, Prince Oberyn?" she asked shortly. "I am sure you did not come to my rooms to play matchmaker, your highness."

"No, I did not," he agreed easily. "I came to enquire after any marksmen to match Larra you might have in your company - we will need them, to administer my little potion to Arthur and his brothers."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from 'Another Love' by Tom Odell.


	10. You're digging a hole, dear, it's filled you up

Lady Larra's bow was exquisite, so weighed down with ornamentation that Dara was amazed she could draw it.

"My husband had it made for me," Larra said, all mischief. "He is a darling, my Mors."

Dara had not met Mors Blackmont - he was apparently away with the Dornish army, away north somewhere - but thought she might like him, if only because Lady Larra was so clearly enamoured with her husband. Dara had taken to her hostess, and had learned how keen her judgement was.

She was taken aback by how keen Larra's aim was, however.

 

* * *

 

Asric could not bring himself to watch when Larra turned her bow, after two perfect shots, towards Arthur.

"It will not kill him," Oberyn said softly, reaching over to squeeze Asric's shoulder in support. "I altered the formula a shade, weakened it enough that it will incapacitate him for as long as we need but nothing more. I would not kill him unless you willed it, Asric, surely you know that?"

Arthur was not moving when Asric looked, was spread out flat on the ground as though dead.

"Come," he said, before his stomach could turn, "we have only a short while."

 

* * *

 

Asric and Martyn were holding the midwife, which left Howland and Lady Larra to follow Dara up and up and up to where Lya was being kept.

_"Ned!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Grace, Don't Wait!' by the Coronas


	11. I've been chasing down the answers

Lya had already started birthing her babe when Dara found her, and so they did not dare to move her. The midwife was released and set to work - with Larra's help - and Asric was dispatched to bring a maester from Blackmont.

"Ride as hard as you can drive your horse, and take fresh from the stables," Larra ordered him, and he nodded once, face tight, and was gone with a sweep of his dust-coloured cloak of silk. "I hope he is quick enough, but I worry..."

There was blood in Lya's bed - Dara had expected that, of course, as soon as she had understood her sister's condition, but apparently the quantity of it had the midwife worried.

She came from Starfall, Dara guessed, because she spoke of Asric and his brother the way she had often overheard folk from the winter town speak of herself and Bran when they were home. Members of the House, mayhaps not familiar ones, but much loved all the same for who they were. 

She ached for Winterfell then, ached to see Lya in their home once more, and wondered what would become of her little sister no matter who won this war. Bound to  _Robert,_ who Dara had come to see more clearly for a little distance, who would mistreat her simply for being a woman of flesh, not of his dreams? Or stuck forever with her rapist?

"Ned," Lya said, all gasps and whimpers, "Ned, I didn't want it, I didn't, Papa and Bran, Ned, I didn't I  _didn't-"_

"Hush, sweetling," Dara cooed, shifting to sit by Lya's head, to hold her hands and guide her back to lean against Dara's shoulder. "I know, my darling, I know, Father and Bran knew as well, sweetling. They fought for you, Lya-"

"I didn't  _want_ it," she sobbed, and Dara held her as close as she could while Lya bore down on a pain so bad it made her body curl in on itself.

Larra, Dara noticed, was watching the midwife with a studied concern, and it made her stomach twist.

 

* * *

 

Dara had Lya's son, her tiny little boy, tucked into the crook of her elbow when Asric returned with the maester. 

"He took me, Ned," Lya slurred, her head lolling onto Dara's shoulder, her fingers trembling against the babe's fat little arm. "I tried to fight, but he had Arthur bind me and gag me, and I could not win, I was too  _weak._ "

"You are the strongest person I know to have survived all this, Lya," Dara assured her, kissing her hair and making certain her hold on the babe was secure. "We will go home after this, Lya, I promise you, we  _will_ go home, and I will make you safe."

"Do you promise, Ned?" Lya sighed, sounding for the first time since Dara had found her anything but terrified.  "Promise me, Ned, promise we'll go home."

"I promise, little one," Dara said, kissing her hair again and passing the babe to Larra so she could turn and settle Lya against the pillows. Her sister snored, and Dara followed Larra out into the purple-gold of the setting sun to find Asric.

He had brought not only the maester, who Dara directed inside, but also Prince Oberyn.

Dara did not know Oberyn Martell well - she had seen him at Harrenhall, and seen him a handful of times at Blackmont, but he had always shone with life during those times, a vitality that had been a part of his disarming charm, burning bright enough to stand out even beside someone so beautiful as Asric.

That light had been snuffed out, and Dara had a terrible feeling she knew why. Hadn't she felt as though her own light had been snuffed out when word came of Bran's death?

"Rhaegar Targaryen was slain on the Trident by Robert Baratheon," he said, voice hoarse and soft. "Aerys Targaryen was slain in the throne room of the Red Keep by Jaime Lannister, and my... My sister and her children were slain by Lannister men in their beds."

Dara touched her hand to his shoulder, gripping tight when he did not push her away, and swallowed hard.

"I am so sorry," she said softly, and hoped he would accept her sympathy as sincere. She had not been able to do so in the wake of Bran's murder, because how could any other understand? How could they know what it was they were sorrowful for? But Dara knew. She hoped it would be enough to give Prince Oberyn some comfort, the knowledge that he was not alone in his pain.

"Your foster-brother seeks not only your sister, but also you," Asric said, wrapping an arm tight around Prince Oberyn and biting his lip. "Your deceit has been discovered, Dara, and he has sent a missive to every keep in the realm demanding that any sight of you is reported. What would you have us do?"

The maester and the midwife came down the tower stairs, looking near as sympathetic as Lord Jon had when telling her of Father and Bran's fate.

"My sister?" she said, and what did Robert matter when she had  _promised_ Lya?

 

* * *

 

He stayed in the close little room that smelled of blood and roses at Dara's request, and ached to offer her some comfort as she held her sister and watched little Lyanna Stark pass from this world. 

He offered what prayers he knew - felt awkward doing so, but wasn't it better to offer some than none, even if the Starks kept different gods to his? - and otherwise stayed silent, standing by the window or crouching by the bed, resting his hand on Dara's knee as an attempt at comforting her, or supporting her. He knew not which for sure.

Larra had the babe, he knew, and so he knew that Dara's nephew was safe. He had less confidence in Oberyn's safety - he did not doubt that his friend was capable of harming himself, even killing himself, now that Elia was gone - but knew that there was naught to be done for Oberyn. Oberyn would not accept comfort now, and Asric did not expect him to when the pain was still so fresh. 

So he stayed in the close little room at Dara's request, and when Lyanna Stark breathed her last he slipped out the door to fetch the maester and to ask Larra to send word to Blackmont for two carts, one for Lyanna's body and one for Arthur, who still breathed but seemed to do little else.

When he returned to the little room, Dara had thrown the windows open as wide as they would go, and turned the sheet up over her sister's face. He held her and stroked his hand over her unevenly-cut hair as she wept, and hated hated hated Rhaegar Targaryen with everything in him.

 

* * *

"What of the babe?" Asric asked her, as they rode slowly for Blackmont the next morning, and Dara had no answer. She did not know what she was to do about her little nephew, who looked so terribly like Bran even already - precisely as Ben had looked as a babe, she remembered suddenly, Ben who was growing so like Bran, and Dara felt a fresh wave of tears that Lya would never see how Ben had started to grow into his shoulders.

"Robert cannot know," she said. "He- he would not understand. I think he would blame Lya. And Rhaegar. No, he cannot know. I am a poor liar, but it is not a lie to say my sister died of a fever."

"Do you think to leave him in Dorne?" Asric asked, pressing her for answers she did not have. "Or do you mean to claim him as your own, gotten on you by one of your companions? Or by me, mayhaps, for it is well known at court that I have some regard for you."

 _Some regard_ was a poor shadow of the love Prince Oberyn professed Asric to bear her, but she said nothing. What did such things matter, when there was only her and Ben and this little babe, with his fat little hands and his tufts of dark brown hair, left?

"I might claim him as mine and Mark's," she said, wishing her voice were firmer, not clogged with more tears that she did not wish to shed. "Mark asked for my hand, it is not impossible to believe that we might have lain together."

"And set some of your brother's bannermen on the child?" Asric demanded, and Dara wondered why he was being cruel. "And  _ruin_ your own chances of a good match, Lady Eddara? Is that what you wish?"

"Asric," Larra snapped from ahead of them. "Enough - I understand that you feel you must take responsibility for your brother's faults, but this is not the way to do it."

They rode on in silence, Dara digesting what Larra had said, and Blackmont was looming above them when Asric spoke again.

"I would claim him as mine," he said quietly. "If it would spare you pain, I would claim him as mine alone and raise him in safety at Starfall, but none would believe him mine and not yours if I tried. I did not mean to hurt you, Dara, but you must see the danger you are in."

 

* * *

 

Oberyn dripped the antidote down Arthur's throat that night, while Dara and Larra tried to decide what to say to the new King in their letter. It allowed him to move and speak, but could not restore the strength lost. Asric did not lament it one bit - it was a small penance for what his brother had done, for the pain he had helped cause, for the  _death._

Allem, sitting on a chest under the window, looked older than Asric had ever known of him. His hair seemed more grey than silver in the moonlight, his eyes shadowed, and Asric loathed Arthur suddenly for causing pain to Allem, too, and to sweet Lyria, and to Father, who of all people needed this pain least.

They told Art all they knew, of Rhaegar's death and the deaths of Elia and Lyanna, and Elia's sweet babes, and then they waited for him to speak.

"The child," Arthur said, "the child is the rightful king."

"The child is a bastard," Oberyn said. "A Blackfyre, not a Targaryen."

"Rhaegar wed-"

"Rhaegar already _had_ a wife! _And_ children!"

Asric wound an arm over Oberyn's shoulders and pulled him back, pulled him close, away from Arthur. 

"Targaryen or no, we have no word but yours now that Rhaegar  _did_ wed Lady Lyanna," Allem said softly. "And your word is shit, Art."

"I will take him," Arthur said, his arms shaking under him so badly he only got as far as his elbows. "I will raise him away from Westeros - let that be my penance, if you wish. I will keep him safe as I could not... As I should have..."

Asric felt no sympathy for Arthur's long love of Elia in that moment, and knew neither Allem nor Oberyn did, either. 

"What will you do to support him?" Allem asked, a cold whisper of a sneer in the curl of his lip. "Will you become a sellsword, Arthur? Do you know how to wield a normal blade, little brother? For I swear to you now, you will  _never_ lay a hand to Dawn again, not so long as my line holds Starfall."

 

* * *

 

Robert sent word that she was to come to the capital, and Dara could not breathe.

Lya's bones had been picked clean - she did not ask how, could not bear the thought of knowing what had so speedily turned her sister from flesh to bone - and laid in a casket of scented wood. Dara had asked Larra for a gown, because she would be sailing home, or at least most of the way home, and...

And if she stopped wearing breeches, it was at an end. A gown and the look of a lady ruined by her short hair - a mark of her failure - and she could bring Lya home. Would Robert punish her for disobeying him? She did not much care. Let him and all the rest put it down to the madness of a woman's grief.

She supposed, bitterly, that Robert was giving voice to his own grief for Lya, as if he had known her. Dara, to ease her own mind, had convinced herself that Robert had loved Lya, but how could she have ever thought to believe such a thing when she  _knew_ Robert?

It had all been for naught, anyways. She had wanted to bring Lya home, to have her sweetlings tucked away safe at Winterfell again, but now...

"Arthur is well provisioned," Asric said softly, his little finger warm against hers on the sandstone railing of the balcony. Sometimes, when she was alone, she wondered if it would not be easier to hurl herself into the gulf below, but guilt and worry for Ben also stayed her hand. "He will keep your nephew safe, Dara. Allem has sent a wetnurse who will report back to him, just to be safe, but Arthur... For all his faults, I would trust him with this. He does understand that he has helped commit a great evil."

Oh, he had done more than that - he had planned Lya's kidnap, he had admitted as much, and only Buckets' big hand on her wrist had kept Dara from tearing him apart with her bare hands at that revelation. Had Arthur Dayne not helped his Prince so completely, Lya might yet be safe in Winterfell.  _And I might be safe in the Eyrie, wed to Elbert, training Robert to be better for Lya,_ she thought suddenly, and longed for the library and bright afternoons spent with Elbert.

"I will find him if he does not," she said, unable to look at Asric because he, too, was part of something she could no longer have - selfishly, during those days when they had lingered and waited for Prince Oberyn's arrival, she had started to think that mayhaps that easy way they'd had in one another's company at Harrenhall could be built on, a thought that had been bolstered by Prince Oberyn's assertion that Asric was in love with her (and oh, didn't he often look at her as if he was?).

But it could not be.

"I will kill him with my own hands if he allows harm to come to that child," Dara said. "Call him Jon - a plain name, one of no remark. Call him that, and keep him safe."

 

* * *

 

"Oberyn and I will come as far as Sunspear with you," Asric said, offering Dara his arm and walking the length of the deck with her - the river boat was small, but sturdy, and they would transfer to a larger vessel at Starfall. "I would escort you home, but there are observances to be kept. Elia was my friend as much as she was anyone's, and I would not insult her memory by abandoning Oberyn now."

She stared blindly back in the direction of that accursed tower, and Asric's throat felt closed because he wished more than anything that she would smile again, but how was he to make that happen? How was he to brighten those fine eyes of hers when they were weighed down with so much very real grief?

"I wish I could have done more," he said softly, remaining at her side because he had seen the longing on her face whenever she stood on her balcony in Larra's keep, because he feared the same longing would take her for the swift waters of the river. "I wish I could have saved her."

"So do I," she said, and then she left him for the little cabin at the rear of the boat.

 

* * *

Starfall and Sunspear were beautiful, she was sure.

Dara did not pay them any mind, though. Her only concern was for Winterfell, and Ben, and the babe that had been sent away as the child of Arthur Dayne and a wet-nurse called Wylla, Ser Arthur's starlight hair dyed as dark as Dara's own in an attempt to make him less singular, less recognisable as the shamed Sword of the Morning.

 _Be safe, little Jon,_ she prayed, resting one hand on Lya's casket and the other over her eyes, as if by hiding her tears she could deny them. Howland and Buckets always ignored any sign of her grief, respecting that she longed for distance, but Asric...

Asric did not allow her distance. He crowded close to her, forcing her to speak, sitting by her at meals and frowning at how she picked at her rations, walking her to her little cabin at nightfall and, Dara knew, lingering outside her door for some time, as if guarding her, as if waiting to hear her sleep.

He was so beautiful, her traitorous mind reminded her all too often, especially when he shed his shirt to work with the crew, and half of her wished to keep him by her always while the other half wished never to see him again if she could not  _have_ him.

 

* * *

 

She wondered if the gods hated her, at the end of it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay! Chapter title from 'Holding Onto Heaven' by Foxes


	12. We can never go home, we no longer have one

Asric near had to carry Oberyn ashore at Sunspear, but he still managed to find a moment to bid Dara farewell.

"My lady," he said, surprising them both by falling to his knees before her. "I pray that one day, when this all is in the past and you have found your home once more, that you can forgive me and my House any part we played in your sister's death. It is much to ask, I know, but-"

Her hand was gentle in his hair, and when he raised his head to meet her eyes he was surprised once more to find her in tears. She had not cried in days, not outside of her little cabin, and to see her doing so now made him wish that he might continue his journey with her, might stand by her side and keep her from the ship's railings. She lingered there overlong every day even with him to guide her away, and he worried that there might only be a casket of bones for the mountain man and the frogeater to bring to Winterfell for Benjen Stark to bury. 

Asric could not allow that to happen, and had spoken with little Reed and demanded, on pain of death, that he guard Dara from her melancholy. He could no more allow her to die than he could abandon Oberyn to suffer through these days of horror.

Elia's bones and those of her children were yet in King's Landing, the last Asric knew. There had been no word of plans for their release, no word that they would be sent home to Sunspear, and just the thought of all that was left of the sweet princess and her babes being held by the men who'd murdered them turned his stomach. No, Asric could not leave Oberyn to suffer this alone. He would stand by his friend, his _oldest_ friend, just as Oberyn had stood by his side when Arthur had turned into something other than himself.

But Dara. He was abandoning her to her misery and grief, and loathed himself for that.

"There is nothing to forgive," she said quietly, sniffling against her tears. "You and Lord Dayne helped me find Lya, Asric. You allowed me to offer her some comfort during her final moments. What sin is there in anything you have done?"

He stood on the dock and watched the ship depart, watched until it was out of sight, and then he turned and wove through the shadow town to find Oberyn. 

 

* * *

 

"You must eat, Dara," Howland said gently, pressing a hard biscuit into her hand and tugging her away from the railing. "It won't do any good to let yourself waste away to nothing."

Her hair was long enough now for the salt-spray to stick it to her cheeks and lips, and the roaring wind made it easy to ignore Howland's soft words. She chose to do so, and tightened her grip on the railing. 

The sea had been wild ever since they passed the Stepstones, since they had come closer to the Stormlands, and Dara half wanted to weep with anger at this. Even the seas by Robert's home was making it difficult for her to leave the south behind, and she cursed them and it and him to the heavens and back down to all the hells. 

She wondered if the anger that burned in her belly at the very thought of Robert was hatred. She did not know, because it felt different to the dizzying loathing that twisted her insides when Rhaegar Targaryen came to mind, as he so often did.  _He raped her, he took her and used her and abandoned her to her doom._

She supposed it might have been. She had never hated anyone before, not until so very recently, and wondered if hatred was always so exhausting.

She let go of the railing and took the biscuit from Howland. She would get Lya home, get home to Ben, and mayhaps then she could sort through all these terrible  _feelings._

 

* * *

 

But home was not to be.

They docked somewhere just south of Storm's End for provisions, and were met there by a large party of men all dressed in Baratheon colours, all bearing the crowned stag.

"His Grace King Robert of the House Baratheon," one began, and Dara felt faint. She had hoped and prayed that the reports of Elia Martell and her children's deaths had been wrong, had been lies, but how else might Robert have become King? Had he killed the Queen and little Prince Viserys, who had watched the tourney at Harrenhall with such rapt attention, too? 

She found her ears again some long way into the man's announcement, and what she heard made her wish once more that none of them had ever come south. Had Father fostered her in the North as he had Bran, had he arranged Northern matches for Bran and herself and Lya, gods, they might all yet be alive and well and  _safe_ and  _home_ -

But no, it was not Father's fault. She could not blame him for wishing the best for his children. She would blame the men who had chosen war, the man who had stolen Lya, the man who had murdered Father and Bran. She would blame them. She would not blame her lord father for something not his fault.

"His Grace requests that you come to the capital immediately, Lady Eddara," the man said, and Dara thought she mayhaps recognised him - he had something of Robert's arrogance about him, that was likely it - but set that aside in favour of... In favour of what?

"You may tell my foster-brother, ser," she said, fully aware that her voice was colder than was courteous but not caring a whit, "that I must escort my sister's bones home to Winterfell. Mayhaps once I have done that, and seen my brother settled as Lord of Winterfell-"

"No, my lady," the man said. "Your companions are to continue on to Winterfell with the Lady Lyanna's bones, but you  _must_ accompany us to King's Landing immediately. Both the King and the Lord Hand have ordered it."

"The Lord Hand... Lord Arryn? Lord  _Arryn_ would demand this of me?"

She had always known that kindly though he could be, Lord Jon was not a warm man, or a man given to any true show of feeling. He trusted in his stoicism and found refuge there when other men would turn to their cups, something she had once found comforting, but now? Now she loathed it of him.

Of Robert, this was all less surprising. Doubtless he was thinking only of himself, as he was wont to do, and wanted his foster-sister to comfort him in the loss of his betrothed. Never mind that his foster-sister and his betrothed had been  _sisters,_ never mind that his betrothed had died in her sister's arms while he celebrated the murder of innocents.  _Innocents like Lya._   _  
_

"So I am not to bid my sister a proper farewell, on the orders of two men who doubtless profess all affection for me?" she asked, shaking her head and holding up a hand to forestall the man's reply. 

Howland seemed sad, and Buckets angry, but she felt only tired, all of a sudden, too tired to fight anymore. Fighting had lost her Father and Bran, had lost her Lya, had lost her Elbert and Mark (and Asric). 

"Bring her home for me," she said. "I will follow on as soon as I am able."

 

* * *

 

Oberyn's grief rang out through the whole of Dorne, or at least it felt as if it did to Asric.

He howled, rage and sorrow tearing out of him in great sobbing cries, as Elia and her children were carried from the ship. Doran was silent, eyes shadowed and hooded and jaw clenched tight, the Lady Mellario clearly alarmed on his arm.

Asric did not know what to do with himself. Elia had been his friend, true, but he had always been closer to Oberyn than to the Princess. He had loved her children - had thought them to be as much his blood as they were Oberyn's - but they were not his.

He had no true claim on Elia, and felt that Arthur's involvement in what had been done to Lady Lyanna lessened what little he had once thought to have, so he stood aside - back with Larra and Mors - and bowed his head as the caskets were carried by.

Oberyn disappeared the following day, reappearing as a spectre at the ceremonies and standing mute by Doran's side, his girls clustered close around the little Princess save for the youngest, who he carried high against his chest. 

Larra was silent, too - she clung tight to Mors' side, and Asric noticed how her gaze lingered on the tiny, tiny caskets that held Rhaenys and Aegon. He saw how Mors pressed his hand firm into the curve of her spine, how he gathered her even closer and murmured something in her ear, something that Asric half-heard and thought sounded like  _not ours._

Could she be with child? What a strange thought, Larra as a mother. 

Asric wondered if ever he would be a father, and could only think of quiet babes with striking grey eyes. A dream long lost now, he supposed, and never held as anything other than a fancy in truth, for what hope could he have ever had to claim a daughter of Winterfell?

 

* * *

 

Robert wept when he beheld her, and Lord Jon was as quiet as she might have predicted.

Catelyn Tully - Catelyn Arryn, now - was a balm, or as near to one as Dara thought she might find until she was allowed to return home. Lady Catelyn arranged a bath, a long, hot bath, and a chance to properly wash her hair, and to dress in clothes that  _fit_ for the first time in so, so long. It was a small comfort, but it was a comfort all the same, and Dara luxuriated in it for as long as she was able.

It was late in the evening, after she had dined with Catelyn in the lady's solar in the Tower of the Hand, after she had finally taken note of the heavy swell of Catelyn's belly, that Robert and Lord Jon came to her.

"It is only right that Robert honour the betrothal between yours Houses," Lord Jon said. "I will be advising your brother to do the same - Lady Lysa, my goodsister, is yet unwed, and not impossibly older than Benjen. You would make a fine Queen, Eddara."

Dara was so, so tired.

"But I just want to go home," she said, and Robert ignored her and Lord Jon sighed in that way of his.

They - that is, Lord Jon and Robert - agreed that the wedding would be held a week hence, and also that a week beyond that again Robert's brother, Stannis, would wed Cersei Lannister, who apparently would have been Queen had Dara not been foolish enough to agree to come to the city.

Ben wrote to her and begged her forgiveness, and she thought of Asric Dayne's violet eyes bruised black by the shadows of Sunspear as he had done the same, and she cried.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Oberyn slammed the door of Asric's chamber shut behind him and sat heavily on the divan at his side.

"Speak to me, Oberyn," Asric murmured, pulling Oberyn to lie across his chest. "I cannot offer comfort if you will not accept it."

"You will be gone too far to offer me any comfort," Oberyn said, tugging a letter from his robe and setting it by Asric's hand. "You are summoned, at the behest of the Usurper King and his new Queen, to King's Landing."

Asric had heard of Dara's marriage - he supposed he ought not think of her as  _Dara_ any longer, not now that she was  _Queen Eddara of House Baratheon,_ consort of the Usurper.

"What reason could they have to summon  _me_ of all people?" he said, sitting up but keeping one hand on Oberyn's back - his friend had rolled over to lay in the warmth he had left on the sheets, like a cat seeking heat - as he unfolded the letter.

"You could well be Sword of the Morning now, my friend," Oberyn said, sounding angrier than Asric ever remembered him to be. "And it seems that the bastard who sits the throne would claim you as Aerys claimed Arthur."

_Raised to the Kingsguard._ Asric could not imagine it, especially not now, not after everything that had occurred these past months. 

"Dara," he said. "Do you think...?"

"I know not," Oberyn said, sitting up enough to lean against Asric's back, "but having met Robert Baratheon, I do not think an ally at court would do the new Queen any harm at all."

 

* * *

 

She had had only Catelyn with her, the morning after the wedding, only Catelyn to witness her pain - Robert had been drunk, had been violent, had been  _Robert,_ and there had hardly been an inch of her that had not ached.

"He called me  _Lyanna_ ," she remembered whispering, and it had been that which hurt worst of all.

So she had thought then. But this? This was a thousand times worse than that.

She had told Lord Jon and Robert all that had occurred during her journey - her  _quest,_ as Robert had japed - to find Lya, and Robert had taken it into his head to reward House Dayne. Dara had thought little of it at the time, but now, now she wondered if there had been something in the way she had spoken of Asric that had hinted to Robert of her feelings for the new-made Sword of the Morning, sworn brother of the Kingsguard.

Lord Jon had explained that it was an attempt to appease Dorne, just like the plan to offer little Renly for Doran Martell's daughter - since discounted, as Robert planned on installing Renly at Storm's End. Dorne and the Westerlands, the Westerlands and Dorne, but nairy a whisper of the North because Robert and Lord Jon were sure that having made her Queen-

No, she would not think on that. She would drive herself mad if she did.

She turned her thoughts back to Asric. Asric, who was pale and angry, so clearly angry that Dara wondered how in the world Robert could not see it, Asric who spoke his vows in a sharp, clipped voice so different from what she knew of him.

_They have trapped you here, too,_ she thought, and later, at the feast to celebrate his new white cloak, she danced with him as she had at Harrenhall, and when the skies were dark and none paying any mind to their Queen, she pulled him close and kissed him, just once, in the godswood.

It would never be enough, she did not think, but she would not dishonour either of them further.

 

* * *

 

He never once called her Dara after that, not until the day Robert gutted himself on a blasted boar in the kingswood.

He was good to her, though, better than any of his sworn brothers. He bore as much of her weight as she would allow after Robert had spent the night in her bed, carried the children without complaint when she simply could not. He said nothing when she cried at night for missing Ben (and Lya and Bran and Father and  _Bran_ ). Sometimes, when she was utterly overcome, he dared to hold her, dared to whisper of the coded messages Lord Dayne and later their sister sent, messages carrying news from Arthur, news from Dara's little nephew. 

That and the children - two boys and a girl, named Robb for his father, Bran for his uncle, Lyarra for her grandmother - were all that kept her sane. There were times when the children were all that kept her from driving a knife through Robert's heart, and that frightened her. 

Asric was always there, though, during those terrible, dark moments, to remind her that she was better than that. That she was not a murderer.

The day Robert met his end, Ser Arys was sparring against Robb in the yard with Bran watching on, utterly enthralled. Lyarra - never Lya - sat happily at Dara's side, chattering up to Asric, who stood just behind them, and who supplied her with a constant stream of caramels.

It was Asric's hand on the small of her back when the Kingslayer came for her, to announce the King's impending death.

She sought comfort in his arms that evening, as she had in a tower in Dorne so long ago, and it felt good to hide her relief at Robert's death under the protection of the man who had shared her grief at Lya's.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A game I think I'll always lose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5198261) by [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft)




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